Prof. Dr. Aya Kachi | Manuel Ebner

Internationale Politische Ökonomie und Energiepolitik

Research Topic
This project addresses the urgent need for coordinated urban densification strategies
from economic, political, and sustainability perspectives. Amid growing urban
population and housing shortages, combined by restrictive zoning regulations,
many countries face rapid urban sprawl—an urban development pattern with lowdensity
development expanding into rural areas (OECD, 2018). Uncontrolled urban
sprawl has significant economic and environmental impacts. It leads to habitat
(e.g., biodiversity) destruction, increased carbon footprints due to higher vehicle
dependency, and inefficient use of resources such as water, electricity, and waste
management (Brueckner, 2000; Glaeser et al., 2010; Seto et al., 2012). Coordinated
urban densification is known to be a key strategy to combat sprawl, allowing cities
to address urban population growth and housing shortages while maintaining
sustainable land and resource use. But despite expert support from various fields—
urban planning, economics, and law—public resistance to densification projects
remains strong (Monkkonen et al., 2019), hindering action by public administration
and real estate investors, who are otherwise prepared to invest in well-designed
densification.

Description of the Problem
Urban densification increases population density in cities by developing vacant land,
converting non-residential spaces, or replacing low-density housing with higherdensity
developments (Burton, 2000). This promotes sustainability by improving
infrastructure efficiency, reducing commuting, and supporting local economies
30 (Ewing et al., 2010), while also lowering environmental impacts via economies of
scale in energy, waste management, and transportation (Newman et al., 2006).
However, public acceptance is often low due to concerns about overcrowding, loss
of privacy, and perceived declines in quality of life (Vallance et al., 2011; Kanton
Zürich, 2014; Bauer et al., 2024). Prior research has identified drivers of public
support, mainly focusing on socio-demographic factors and project characteristics,
such as design, included amenities, developer reputation, and location (Wicki et al.,
2022a; 2022b). At the same time, recent studies suggest that public opinion is also
shaped by the political-economic frames created by media and political discourse
(Herdt et al., 2023). For example, densification may be framed as a solution to
housing shortages (‘economic policy’ frame) or linked to immigration as a source
of ‘unwelcome’ population growth (‘political’ or ‘ideological’ frame). Moreover,
much of the public remains unaware of the environmental and economic harms of
uncontrolled urban sprawl, including the high costs of providing public services to
low-density areas (OECD, 2018).
To date, there has been no systematic analysis of how socio-demographic factors
and project characteristics interact with issue or information frames to shape
public acceptance of densification. We hypothesize that different issue frames and
levels of awareness lead individuals to focus on different project characteristics,
meaning that the factors influencing their opinions on densification can vary
accordingly. Grasping the effect of these discourses behind densification is crucial
for policy-makers and industry leaders to effectively manage communication and
tackle urban sprawl. It is also important for the media to rethink their role in
enabling sustainability.

Objectives
To fill this research gap, our project examines how (issue and information)
framing affects the influence of socio-demographics and project characteristics
on people‘s density preferences. We ask: Q1: How informed are people about the
effects of densification? Q2: Which factors (e.g., socio-demographics and project
characteristics) influence the acceptance of densification projects? Q3: Can
political frames—directly or indirectly related to densification—influence people‘s
project acceptance? Q4: How does the provision of information on densification
consequences affect acceptance? We address these questions through a survey
in Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, and UK, combining a choice experiment and
framing experiment.